Bellows for reed instruments



UNITED sTATEs PATENT oEEicE.

ISAAC T. PACKARD, OF CAMPELLO, MASSACHUSETTS.

BELLOWS FOR REED INSTRUMENTS.

Specification of Letters Patent No.

To all whom t may concern.'

Be it known that I, ISAAC T. PACKARD, of Campello, in the county of Plymouth and State of Massachusetts, have invented certain new and useful Improvements 1n Bellows for Melodeons and other Reed Musical Instruments; and I do hereby declare that the following is a full, clear, and exact description of the same, reference being had to the accompanying drawings, forming part of this specification, in which-d Figure l, is a transverse section of a double action bellows, and other parts of a melodeon, and, Fig. 2, is a plan of the bellows with the upper leaf removed.

Similar letters of reference indicate corresponding parts in each figure.

The nature of this invention consists in constructing the bellows with two chambers and a pump furnished wit-h valves so .arranged that when they are set in operation, the air is exhausted from one chamber and condensed in the other. There is a communication between the two chambers through the reeds, when the valves upon which the reeds operate are opened by pressing on the keys, and air is forced through the reeds from the condenser, while at the same time it is, as it were, drawn through by the vacuum in the exhaust chamber, by which means the sound is produced more quickly and the tone is better' in every respect than that produced by forcing or drawing alone.

To enable those skilled in the art to make and use my invention I will proceed to describe its construction and operation.

A, is a board which is secured to the frame of the instrument and forms the division between the exhaust and condensing chambers.

E, is the exhaust chamber; C, the condensing chamber and P, the pump, all of which are formed by leaves in a similar manner to the chambers of other bellows. The exhaust chamber and pump are furnished with springs a, c', inside to open them, and the condenser with a spring Z2, outside to close it. There are communications between the exhaust chamber and the pump, which are closed by the valves d, opening toward the pump, and other communications between lthe condenser and pump closed by a valve or valves e, opening from the pump. The back of the condenser terminates in a flexible joint it, leaving a passage behind it for 9,290, dated September 28, 1852.

communication between the exhaust chamber and pump. There is a communication between the condenser and exhaust chamber closed by a valve j, which opens toward the condenser and has a string g, attached to it connecting it to the movable leaf, B, of the condenser-this latter is a safety valve. All the valves consist of strips of leather secured at each end over a series of holes.

D is one of the reeds, and F, the valve which opens the communication through it; between the exhaust chamber and condenser, is the key K.

J, is the sounding board which is thin and fitted air tight over the reeds.

G, is the swell valve which is open'ed by a wire z', passing out through the back of the bellows, and intended to be connected to a foot pedal.

H, is treadle and I, a rod for working the bellows.

When the player presses down the treadle, it lifts up the bottom of the pump P, closes the valve d, and opens that at e, forcing all the air previously contained in the pump into the condenser C; when the pressure of the foot is removed and the treadle allowed to rise, the spring a opens the pump and causes the valve e to close, and CZ, to open, the air then rushes from E, which begins to collapse into P, which is filled. The next downward movement of the treadle forces the air now contained in P, into C, and the next upward motion again fills P, from E, in this way a vacuum is produced in E, and C, is filled and the air compressed in it by the closing tendency of the spring b. The chamber E, has always an inclination to distend itself, produced by the spring a, and the instant the valves E, communicating with the reed are opened by the keys the pressure in C, forces air through, while the vacuum and opening tendency of E, at the same time draw it through, and thus produces the vibration. If the bellows were to continue working for a length of time without opening the valves F, an undue strain would be produced in the chamber t-o obviate this the safety valve f, is connected tothe lower side of the condenser by the string g, which is of such length that when the condenser is distended or opened to a certain width it pulls the valve open and admits air into E, this will always happen when the condenser is unduly strained. It will be veo observed that no air is admitted from the exterior of the bellows, from the exhaust chamber to the condenser, through the valves d, and e, and from the condenser back to the exhaust chamber through the reeds, or through the safety valve.

The peculiarity of these bellows is that they act upon the reeds in two ways namely by forcing and drawing the air through them. The advantages thus produced are that the sound is produced more instantaneously on pressing down the key. The quality of the tone is greatly improved, being full7 rich, and mellow throughout the scale with little or none of the reedy character found in reed instruments with the forcing bello-ws only, and without the nasal quality which predominates where the air is only drawn through the reeds.

ISAAC T. PACKARD Witnesses N. Gr. Foss, BARNAAs H. GRAY. 

